Like many, I have long been drawn to the stunning photographs taken by Ansel Adams. The infinite lines, the dramatic shadows, the timeless beauty of scenes often overlooked. It's no surprise that he has served as a great inspiration in my own work, though I feel as though I will never be on the same level as he. I have about thirty books dedicated to his skill, his knowledge, his passion, but I always just found myself flipping through them and quickly admiring the images. Today I decided to take the time to read what it was he had to say, and I can't believe it has taken me so long. This man was amazing. After my recent visit to Yellowstone and the Tetons and the experience of emotions both highly blissful and highly despondent, I just feel the need to share some of his writings and a few of my favorite photographs. Enjoy!
"I believe the approach of the artist and the approach of the environmentalist are fairly close in that both are, to a rather impressive degree, concerned with the "affirmation of life."… Response to natural beauty is one of the foundations of the environmental movement." via 1975
"As I spent the quiet days in the wild regions of Alaska, I clarified my own concepts of re-creation versus recreation. I saw more clearly the value of true wilderness and the dangers of diluting its finest areas with the imposed accessories of civilization. In Alaska I felt the full force of vast space and wildness. In contrast, the wild areas of our other national parks in the Lower Forty-eight are relatively confined and threatened with increasing accessibility and overstressed facilities… The quality of a place, the reaction to immediate contact with earth and growing things that have a fugal relationship with mountains and sky, is essential to the integrity of our existence on this planet. On this rainy trip to Glacier Bay, I realized the magnitude of the problem and resolved to dedicate as much of my time and energy to it as I could." via 1985
"The Meaning of the National Parks" 1950
(I realize this is quite long, but it's so wonderful... at least read the bolded text!)
The National Parks, are, indeed, phenomena of an advanced society; James Bryce once said that the concept of the National Parks was America's unique contribution to the democratic idea. In fact it is difficult to conceive of America without them; one-fifth of our people experience the National Parks and Monuments within a single year. Nevertheless some confusion exists within the public mind as to what to National Parks are, why they were established, and how they differ on from another. We are constantly seeking a satisfactory definition of the Parks which embraces the factual, administrative, and intangible objectives; such a definition must be both positive and fluid, yet never deviate from a clear, idealistic focus.
We have been given the earth to live upon and enjoy. We have come up from the caves; predatory and primitive ages drift behind us. With almost the suddenness of a Nova's burst to glory we have entered a new dimension of thought and awareness of Nature. The earth promises to be more than a battle-field or hunting-ground; we dream of the time when it shall house one great family of co-operative beings. At least we have the promise of such a world even if the events of our immediate time suggest a return to tooth and claw. We hold the future in a delicate and precarious grasp, as one might draw a shimmering ephemerid from the clutches of a web. The heritage of the earth, direct or synthetic, provides us with physical life. We have, in part, mastered its resources and believe we are able to extract therefrom what is required for millenniums to come without exhaustion of the source. We are now sufficiently advanced to consider resources other than materialistic, but they are tenuous, intangible, and vulnerable to misapplication. They are, in fact, the symbols of spiritual life -- a vast impersonal pantheism -- transcending the confused myths and prescriptions that are presumed to clarify ethical and moral conduct. The clear realities of Nature seen with the inner eye of the spirit reveal the ultimate echo of God.
One hundred years ago the larger part of our non-agrarian land was complete wilderness. Miners were just penetrating the foothills of the Sierra Nevada; hunters, trappers, and explorers had combed the mountains, plains, and backwoods of the continent but had left little permanent impression on the more comely features of the land. True, vast forests had fallen before the axe and plough, and wildlife was sorely depleted. Myriad buffalo bones bleached on the great plains, hides and pelts piled into the millions, the oceans were drained of the leviathans. These human invasions were as a great wind, wreaking havoc, but permitting certain revivals. Machines had but slightly supplemented hands. Man lived close to Nature -- a raw and uncompromising Nature -- and he was a part of the great pageant of sun, storms, and disasters. By the turn of the century the Nation came into its adult strength, industrialization had launched its triumphant final campaign, and men turned upon the land and its resources with blind disregard for the logic of ordered use, or for the obligations of an ordered future. The evidence is painfully clear; entire domains of the Pacific Northwest -- once glorious forests -- are now desolate brushy slopes. Thousands of square miles of the Southwest, once laced with green-bordered streams prudently secured by the ground cover of ample grass, are now a dusty phalanx of desert hills, starving the pitiful sheep and their shepherds that wander over them. We all know the tragedy of the dustbowls, the cruel and unforgivable erosions of the soil, the depletion of fish and game, and the shrinking of the noble forests. And we know that such catastrophes shrivel the spirit of the people.
Possessions, both material and spiritual, are appreciated most when we find ourselves in peril of losing them. The National Forests were established just in time to prevent unimaginable disaster. Through the far-seeing efforts of men such as John Muir and Stephen Mather the concept of the National Parks was solidified and vast areas set aside in perpetuum against the ravages of diverse forms of exploitation. Then, through the device of the Presidential Proclamation authorized by the Antiquities Act, many National Monuments of exceptional worth and interest were added to the growing system of conserved areas. Add to this the belated controls of other natural resources, and we cannot feel altogether planless and drifting -- although almost every protective regulation was effected too late to achieve the ideal measure of success.
We hold little anxiety that the strictly utilitarian controls on forests, oil, mines, and fisheries will be seriously relaxed under our present concept of Government. These relate to our basic material security; every phase of our national life depends directly or indirectly upon those administrative controls. But the National Parks represent those intangible values which cannot be turned directly to profit or material advantage, and it requires integrity of vision and purpose to consider such impalpable qualities on the same effective level as material resources. Yet everyone must realize that the continued existence of the National Parks and all they represent depends upon awareness of the importance of these basic values. The pressures of a growing population, self-interest, and shortness of vision are now the greatest enemies of the National Park idea. The perspectives of history are discounted and the wilderness coveted and invaded to provide more water, more grazing land, more minerals, and more inappropriate recreation. These invasions are rationalized on the basis of "necessity." And this necessity may appear quite plausible on casual examination. People must have land, and land must have water. Cattle and sheep must have forage. With the establishment of reservoirs -- great man-made lakes often reaching far into the wilderness domain -- come diverse human enterprises, roads, resorts, settlements. The wilderness is pushed back; man is everywhere. Solitude, so vital to the individual man, is almost nowhere. Certain values are realized; others destroyed. The dragons of demand have been kept at snarling distance by the St. Georges of conservation, but the menace remains. Only education can enlighten our people -- education, and its accompanying interpretation, and the seeking of resonances of understanding in the contemplation of Nature.
The great wilderness areas, designation for perpetuation of the intangible qualities of Nature, must be given appropriate use and interpretation, and complete protection. Perhaps one of the more positive ways of achieving this objective is to encourage writers, artists and photographers to utilize these profoundly beautiful areas as a source of inspiration and interpretation to the fullest possible extent. It is necessary to penetrate the illusion of mere "scenery" to achieve a more profound understanding of the world about us.
The development of our American society has favored the emergence of truly indigenous art. Great essayists and poets -- Melville, Thoreau, Emerson, and Whitman -- the last striking the great acrid bell of truth in his songs of praise of Nature and of Man; painters and photographers -- Ryder, Winslow Homer, Thomas Moran, John Marin -- Brady, O'Sullivan, Stieglitz, Edward Weston; and musicians -- MacDowell, Copland, Bacon, the folksongsters, and many other adopted and native composers and performers, have contributed mightily to the national life and spirit. If the domains both of Nature and of art have strongly influenced our culture, why can we not now bring them into more definite association? In those larger National Parks where thousands are drawn for spiritual experience, but who perhaps are distracted by dominating resort activities, we should present with appropriate restraint the greater works of music and art -- if only to re-enforce and clarify the complex response to the natural scene. In my own experience here in Yosemite I find that there are many who approach the opportunity of hearing great music with almost religious devotion, for there is always great magic in the mingling of the emotional experiences of Nature and the aesthetic experiences of art.
Our time is short, and the future is terrifyingly long. Believing as we must that things of the heart and mind are most enduring, this is the opportunity to apply art as a potent instrument of revelation, expression, and perpetuation of wilderness actualities and moods. Through art of brush, pen, and lens, each one no less than another, we possess a swift and sure means of touching the conscience and clearing the vision.
The dawn wind in the High Sierra is not just a passage of cool air through forest conifers, but within the labyrinth of human consciousness becomes a stirring of some world-magic of most delicate persuasion. The grand lift of the Tetons is more than a mechanistic fold and faulting of the earth's crust; It becomes a primal gesture of the earth beneath a greater sky. And on the ancient Acadian coast an even more ancient Atlantic surge disputes the granite headlands with more than the slow, crumbling erosion of the sea. Here are focuses familiar with the aeons of creation, and with the aeons of the ending world.
In contemplation of the eternal incarnations of the spirit which vibrate in every mountain, leaf, and particle of earth, in every cloud, stone, and flash of sunlight, we make new discoveries on the planes of ethical and human discernment, approaching THE NEW SOCIETY AT LAST, PROPORTIONATE TO NATURE."
"The American Pioneer approached the Natural Scene in a very different way than we must now. The land and its provisions were seemingly inexhaustible. The problems of existence we most severe. The Pioneer undoubtedly cherished his farm, his ranch and his range -- representing something almost infinite in extent and bounty -- young, vibrant, ever-enduring. Now, as the blights of over-population, over-exploitation and over-mechanization encroach from all directions, we come to love our land as we would love someone very near and dear who may soon depart, leaving naught by the recollection of a beauty which we might have protected and perpetuated. We must realize-- and with desperate conviction-- that it is truly later than we think." From the Charter Day Address, 1965
"Wilderness, or wildness, is a mystique. A religion, an intense philosophy, a dream of ideal society -- these are also mystiques. We are not engaged in preserving so many acre-feet of water, so many board-feet of timber, so many billion tons of granite, so many profit possibilities in so may ways for those concerned with the material aspects of the world. Yet, we must accept the fact that human life (at least in the metabolic sense) depends upon the resources of the Earth. As the fisherman depends upon the rivers, lakes, and seas, and the farmer upon the land for his existence, so does mankind in general depend upon the beauty of the world about him for his spiritual and emotional existence." 1980
